We visit a Sandwell town full of busy shops, happy customers and more than a few characters
It's a town with an industrial heritage and a working class ethos, full of lively shops, busy pubs and plenty of characters with a fun sense of humour.
If you get off the M5 at junction 2 and take the second exit off the Birchley Island roundabout, the road will take you into the heart of Sandwell, an area with an industrial past and full of rugged and tough people.
One of the main stops on that road is the town of Blackheath, which was historically part of Rowley Regis until 1966, before becoming part of the county borough of Warley, then forming part of Sandwell in 1974.
The land on what was known as Bleak Heath was purchased by developers in the 1840s and, over the rest of the 19th century, it was expanded into a dormitory town for industries such as mining at Coombes Wood and Hailstone.
It also saw the establishment of a market in 1867 alongside a new railway station on the Great Western Railway and was a hub of industry, but suffered from the closure of the last coal mine in the area in 1919.
It still became a manufacturing hub in the 20th century and into the 21st century through the fasteners business at the Excelsior Works of Thomas William Lench and the electrical engineering business of British Thomson-Houston (BTH).
Any visitors to Blackheath today will see a vibrant and busy town centre, full of traffic passing through on the modern ring road and new bus lanes and people bustling between a range of shops, including butchers, bakers, bargain shops, takeaways and the large Sainsbury's supermarket on the edge of the town centre.
